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Janey Lee Grace began her career as a singer and is the author of the best-selling book Imperfectly Natural Woman, among other titles. She’s also an accomplished broadcaster and a regular on BBC Radio 2, contributing to Steve Wright’s afternoon show, which goes out to eight million listeners. Her experience on both sides of the microphone makes her an ideal person to offer effective PR and media training – her particular passion is working with natural therapists and she also trains corporate groups, entrepreneurs and individuals.

“I link PR and media training together,” she explains. “If you have some kind of message you want to get out there, you have to have good PR so that the right message is coming across. This might not necessarily be about a product or service that you’re selling – there could be many reasons why you want to get your view or opinion across. People think they don’t need media training because it’s unlikely they’ll be getting on Newsnight – well, that may be true, but if you have anything you want to promote, you might want to feature in newspapers or magazines, on local radio, on the internet.”

Media, she points out, now means much more than it used to. “If you want to use any kind of platform to get your message out there, you need the right skills to get on that platform. You need to be prepared to attract the opportunity and then maximise it.” But it’s also possible to miss that opportunity: being media-ready takes preparation. “One of the reasons I started working with clients on media training is that, as an interviewer and co-host on BBC Radio 2, I see this from both sides of the microphone,” says Lee Grace. “I’ve seen guests come in to do a pre-recorded interview that would have gone out to eight million people – but was dropped because they weren’t prepared.”

So: when the media comes knocking, how do you make sure you’re ready to shine?

Janey Lee Grace

Everyone needs to present themselves well

“Pretty much anyone can benefit from this kind of training. If you have your own business, if you have products you want to sell, you need to be someone clients will like, know and trust. My feeling is that you are your own best PR, and any opportunities to PR yourself will be opportunities to PR your business. Authors can benefit, without doubt, so can bloggers, or anyone who has to give presentations in the workplace. A little bit of PR and media training will transform what you do. And if you don’t have any aspirations to be an entrepreneur, but you want a good job, you still need to be a great interviewee – sending off a CV to a company is, effectively, PRing yourself so you have to get it right. I even say to people who have my audio course, which they can put away until they need it – ‘wait until you want to get your child into a certain school!’ Or maybe you’ll want to drum up interest for a charity project. There are always areas in life where you have to make an impact and an impression, and present yourself in the best way you can.”

Prepare, prepare, prepare …

“It’s all about preparation. If you’re not clear on your own message, how can you possibly get it across to others succinctly? Be clear on what you want to get across as you’ll have a finite amount of time and you need to get the salient information in – but you have to walk a fine line. Journalists need content, producers have to fill air time, so they need informative, interesting interviews. Nobody wants someone to come on air, ask them a question, and have them reply ‘You can find all the info in my book! It’s called X, published by X, and the price is X.’ You can meet the interviewer’s questions but still include your own agenda – and still be interesting and informative. Any good interviewer will allow you to have your ‘plug’, so don’t worry about that. What they want to know about is you. It’s a classic line that people do business with people that they like, know, and trust – and the audience wants to know about you and get to like and trust you. What really makes a difference is when someone is well-prepared and has an interesting story to include, whether it’s about them or someone else’s experience – a story that brings everything alive. And you need enthusiasm, which seems way too obvious, but it’s amazing how many people miss that out. With the best interviews, you come out at the end thinking ‘I wish I’d said more but I got across my three main points’ – or five, or seven – I’d say no more than seven.”

Be clear on your USP and make your personality and enthusiasm visible

“I encourage people to link preparation with writing. While not everyone may think of themselves as a writer, it’s very important to start, whether it’s writing a blog or writing press releases. The very first thing is to get people to be really clear on their USP [unique selling proposition] and understand their own brand: a surprising number of people fall at this very first hurdle. I work with a lot of healing professionals and when I ask them about their own qualities, they often say ‘It’s not about me, it’s the therapy that’s important.’ I ask them to think about whether they’d be happy to go to any hairdresser in any town and the answer is always ‘no’ – of course it’s about the person! I also ask people what they would ask for if their fairy godmother could give them just one wish and you’d be amazed by how many pick something tiny. The idea is to find out what the dream is, then look at you as a brand, and find out how that dream is going to become achievable. The beginning is working out what you really want, then there are a bunch of steps to achieve that. I always get people writing: everybody can do a personal profile piece and make themselves visible within their brand. I’m always amazed when I go to a website and there’s loads of information, facts and figures – but no picture of the person behind the brand. I also work hard with people on interview skills – there are a bunch of skills that aren’t difficult and, once you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”

Who’s in your tribe?

“I encourage people to identify their real clients, which makes you aware of what media you need to PR yourself to. When I ask people in the healing professions who their potential clients are, they often say ‘I can help everyone!’ but how are you going to reach ‘everyone’? So then I ask ‘If you literally had just one more person you could treat, who would it be?’ and there’s always an answer. If you find your niche first, you can grow afterwards, but you need to find your tribe. Start with one project or campaign.”

Connect, don’t sell

“Getting your website right is crucial. You only have five seconds to catch people when they click on your site. Once you’ve identified your ideal clients there are ways of approaching them effectively. You’ve got to make sure you get your press release right. I get ones that are four pages long, that go into great detail – I just don’t have time! And a press release that is simply ‘I’ve got a new bottle of skin cream, why don’t you buy it?’ won’t get anywhere. We want an interesting story that will match our target audience. If you’re producing products for pregnant women, you want to target where those women go, what they read. Most will pick up a copy of Mother & Baby or Junior magazine at some point and there are plenty of groups on Twitter and Facebook. Once you’ve found your target market, it’s not about trying to sell to them, it’s about making connections. People get fed up with Twitter messages saying ‘buy this!’ but they like links to, say, an article or blog that gives them five ways to feel less tired during pregnancy.”